
Toxic positivity: going overboard to be cheerful
Transcript
Host Amber Smith: Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, invites you to be The Informed Patient, with the podcast that features experts from Central New York's only academic medical center. I'm your host, Amber Smith.
Keeping a positive outlook can be good, but positivity can become unhealthy if it becomes toxic. For help understanding toxic positivity, I'm talking with Holly Vanderhoff. She's a clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Upstate.
Welcome back to "The Informed Patient," Dr. Vanderhoff.
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Thanks so much for having me.
Host Amber Smith: Is there a fine line between healthy positivity and toxic positivity?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Yeah, there sure can be. I don't think there's one definition, but we would think of healthy positivity as a person's ability to hold a realistic, healthy degree of optimism to meet life challenges with some open energy, maybe even the sense that "I'm capable of meeting life challenges, even if I go through hard things." And I think a lot of us would assume things like optimism and even feelings of gratitude and awareness of what's really good about life are part of a healthy positivity.
And we know, and it's beyond me to review all this research here, but we know that kind of an outlook can be really helpful to folks and even is associated with things like improved outcomes when someone has a medical or health problem, and in all sorts of ways it can be beneficial.
Where it can cross a line, and sometimes that line is very fine, is where folks really start to try to pursue that positive outlook no matter what they're actually really feeling, or what's actually happening in their lives. And so there can be a very fine line there that many of us cross.
Host Amber Smith: So what makes positivity toxic? Can you define toxic positivity, give some examples?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Sure. And I should say too, this is not a formal diagnosis, so we can't really talk about symptoms the way we would talk about symptoms of depression or COVID, but toxic becoming the idea that in spite of what we're intending by being positive, we're actually maybe creating harm to ourselves or harm to other people.
And so one version of toxic positivity might seem to be that it's the insistence on feeling good, feeling optimistic, feeling cheerful, no matter what life circumstances we're actually facing. And really even no matter what feelings we're really having. So someone who is behaving in a way that's kind of toxically positive might choose to ignore their own difficult feelings, their painful feelings. If they're interacting with someone who's going through something hard, it might feel almost intolerable to them to kind of sit with that person's difficulties. And instead, they might insist on looking on the bright side or looking at everything in a way where there's a life lesson to be gleaned, or something good could come out of pain.
And so the toxic positivity mindset, I think, is that insistence on positivity even in the face of things that are not inherently positive.
Host Amber Smith: So are toxic positive people born, or do they become toxic over time?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: There's a whole raft of research showing that our tendencies to be, at baseline, kind of optimistic or more pessimistic, that there's strong genetic factors that influence that. And then certainly our family environment or whatever environment we grow up in can amplify that or even help tone it down a bit, depending on our experiences. So I would say there's good reason to think the disposition toward feeling optimistic or feeling positive is kind of inborn.
At the same time, what we're talking about with toxic positivity, I think, is very much something that we can absorb from our culture and from our environment.
And so, where this shows up, we could go as far back as the founding documents for the United States has the right and the entitlement to pursue happiness as part of the bedrock of how our country was formed. Western culture really prizes things like independence, taking personal responsibility for our successes, for how we're feeling, and tells us kind of "If you want it, you can have it. You just have to work hard for it."
And so, something I didn't say earlier about the toxic positivity mindset is this idea that if you're going through anything painful or difficult, you can and should try to get rid of that, right? That if you just worked hard enough, or you try the right strategies, you can develop a more positive outlook and therefore have all the benefits of positivity.
So I think culturally, this has been with us for a long time, I think much more recently with the rise of a corporate wellness culture, right? Which will say to us, again, if you do these five stress management strategies, you can be really happy, and life's going to be really great for you.
And even on social media. I'm not on much social media, but what little I use, I scroll it, and it's one meme after another of "live, laugh, love," "hashtag blessed," "hashtag best life," "positive vibes only." And even to things that are, I think, even more insidious: "Everything that's happening to you right now is a result of the choices you've made." There's books like "The Secret," which is an old idea that if you want something, you can kind of think or speak it into an existence by asking the universe for it, and it will come to you. And if you don't have the things you want, maybe it's because you haven't tried hard enough to have them.
And more recently there's, I don't know if anyone's familiar with this, but there's something called the Lucky Girl syndrome, which is another reinvention of this same old idea online, where if I just expect good things to happen to me, if I act like I a lucky girl in the world, great lucky things happen to me all the time.
So we are flooded with messages that painful feelings like anger, sadness, anxiety, those are bad, and we should get rid of them. Not only that, we have the power to get rid of them if we really want to, and then we're going to live the good life. So that's the part, to me, that's toxic, and that's the part that I think we are really handed by our culture more than biology.
Host Amber Smith: There does seem to be a lot of pressure to be positive.
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Yes.
Host Amber Smith: So if you feel like you're an optimistic person to begin with, how do you know if you're becoming toxic with your positivity?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: This is such a good question, and I want to say, if you discover this about yourself, welcome. It's a huge club of us who are in that club.
I think it's easier to see if we think about how we interact with others around us, right? So if I have a good friend who comes to me and is struggling, she's maybe got a problem with her family or her job. And if my first instinct is I need to help my friend, right, I need to cheer her up, I start encouraging her to look on the bright side. I start encouraging her to think about how much worse this really could be. I start immediately encouraging her to think about all the great life lessons or the good things that might come out of this painful experience for her.
That, probably for most of us, that will probably have the impact of pushing her further away, right? We only have to think about how do we want to be treated or taken up if we're having difficulties.
Personally, I, and I think a lot of people, I'd like someone to listen a bit, right? Maybe be empathic, help me work through some of my feelings. Those beliefs, right, those states of thinking, "Hmm, maybe things really could be worse," or "Maybe there is meaning in this that I need to think about," or "Eventually, I might even be happy that this painful thing happened. I might be able to grow from it." Most of us will get there eventually, right? But I think those are attitudes we have to kind of live our way toward. It never, for me, anyway, and for most of us, I don't think, is it ever going to come from someone next to me saying, "You just need to look on the bright side, right? You need to forget those negative feelings."
So if you're someone very well intentioned, but someone who tends to do that to other people, it's probably easiest to see in those relationships that you have.
If you encourage people to -- it's so easy, right? -- especially as a parent, it's so easy to start to want your kids to kind of be happy and in a good mood all the time and to treat their negative moods as a problem that you have to solve, or they should get busy solving right away, so you are comfortable as a parent.
Just being very mindful, right, of those interactions with others, and are we sending messages that we can't, or won't, tolerate their pain?
Host Amber Smith: This is Upstate's "The Informed Patient" podcast. I'm your host, Amber Smith.
I'm talking with clinical psychologist Holly Vanderhoff about toxic positivity.
What impact can toxic positivity have on romantic relationships?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: I think it's maybe the impact it can have on almost any close, intimate relationship, which is to create isolation and alienation from the person, right? So in your romantic relationship, at least in our culture, that's usually your primary relationship. It's the person you go to when you're having difficulties.
If that person is only ever going to encourage you to suppress your difficult feelings and focus on the positive, or they get busy with a solution when maybe what you want is a little bit of support in listening, you're going to have greater distance between you rather than greater closeness.
If you're with someone who tends to do that, it can be really helpful upfront to say, "I'm going through a hard time. What I really need from you right now is just to listen." Like, "Shut up and listen to me," you know? "And don't just tell me it's going to be fine, but I really need you to just kind of listen and be there for me right now." And most people are really responsive to that.
Host Amber Smith: So for somebody who maybe sees themself in some of this that we're talking about, and they want to change their ways, they don't want to be toxic positive anymore, what do you say to them?
How can you go about changing your ways?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Again, I would say, yes, you are in a huge club of people, right? Many, many of us are like this. So you don't need to develop a lot of shame about it or worry that it's one more problem you should solve.
But if you do want to change this about yourself, it might be good to stay mindful of the times when you feel this urge to fix other people's problems, or with yourself, right? You feel this urge. You notice you're angry about something, you get right on the task of getting rid of that anger so that you're not in a bad mood. You've got to be very mindful of the urge you have to flip pain into positivity, and then you just choose to do something maybe even slightly more neutral, right? You don't have to go all in on, "That's the worst thing ever, and you should be angry the rest of your life," right? But just something a bit more neutral with yourself or with other people. This takes, I think, time, like any habit, right? It can become a habit to be this positive problem solver, but if with some time and some mindful effort, you can start to, I think, respond in a way that is probably better caretaking of other people around you, and certainly better self-care, than just telling yourself, say, to get over something quickly, or you should feel grateful, or you should feel optimistic, when you just really don't.
Host Amber Smith: Any advice for dealing with someone who has a toxic positivity personality?
Say they're a family member or a boss or a coworker that you really can't avoid. How do you cope with this sort of personality?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: That can be really, really difficult, right? And I think, again, it colludes with our own idea that, "Gee, I really probably should be more positive." So we can always feel this strange sense of anxiety and almost guilt or shame if we're with someone who's super-positive all the time.
But if you are kind of dealing with that, especially if it's in a close relationship, and you can't really avoid it, in the closer personal relationships, if it's really a problem, I might sit down with that person and try to talk it through a bit. Not in the middle of a time when you are in crisis, but just to say, "You know, I don't know if you realize this, but this is often how you react to me if I'm having a rough day. And I know you mean well. I know, Honey, you want me to feel better, and I really appreciate that about you. But sometimes when you tell me to just look on the bright side, or you try to solve the problem immediately, that actually makes it harder for me to feel OK."
You're probably not going to have a conversation like that with your boss or with a coworker. And so I think when it's in a less personal relationship, but more formal, it could still be helpful to say, "Oh, I hear you. Thanks for that." And if you feel comfortable, saying, "I'm not sure I'm in that place yet, to think about the life lessons here."
And if nothing else works, a fair amount of avoidance can go a long way. That won't be the person you should go to if you're having a rough time. It just probably won't be particularly helpful for you. So there's a little self-protection there. And I think, again, permission, because we can kind of think this way on the inside too, permission to say to ourselves, "It's OK if I'm kind of down today. I don't have to resolve this quickly just because there's a really cheerful person next to me insisting that I do."
Host Amber Smith: Well, let's look at kind of the flip side. Is there such a thing as toxic negativity or even healthy negativity?
I mean, there's some people that sort of have a bit of a negative outlook on life, right?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Yes, that's true. And I think that what's really interesting, again, there's so many areas of research in this field, but there's some interesting research showing that people who are going through difficult medical or physical health problems, if they have a negative attitude, their outcomes are no worse than people who have a more positive outlook. It's just they're a little more subjectively miserable the whole time. There's not necessarily anything catastrophic about having a negative outlook; it's just not going to feel as pleasant.
And so I guess your question is, can negativity be healthy, and can it also become toxic itself?
The healthy version of negativity, I would argue, is the ability to feel things like anger or sadness or anxiety and fear and sit with them appropriately and take the energy that might come from them to address whatever issues they're creating some of those feelings. If I just insist to myself I need to be positive, I don't get the benefit of the energy that, for instance, anger can bring to me to solve a problem. There are all kinds of ways that sitting with what we might call negativity is appropriate. If I have a realistic outlook on a situation, and it's a bit pessimistic because it's realistic, things may not go my way, this bad thing really does seem to be happening in my life, adopting an optimistic attitude is probably not going to help me through that situation as much as appraising it realistically and then getting down to the business I need to get down to.
What I would say is a toxic negativity is something like ruminating excessively on how the bad thing could happen, right? People who feel very prone to just playing out the worst-case scenarios all the time or ruminating about things that have happened in the past and can't seem to let go of something that's difficult or painful. You can get very stuck in that kind of a negative outlook, and I don't think people do that on purpose. I don't think sometimes they're even conscious of it, but it can, I think, create more anxiety and frustration, and it can start to blind the person to the areas of their lives that really are either going pretty well or maybe even going really well, or the positive outcomes that could happen.
So if you find yourself really stuck in rumination or worrying about the future, your head's almost never in the present, right, we're almost always in the past, or we're almost always in the future, that can be a sign to just tap the brakes a little bit and see if you can come back to something more neutral.
Host Amber Smith: Is there a danger in people who try to suppress negative feelings? If they're feeling sad, and they just try to make themselves positive. Is there bad side effects to doing that?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: You might think, "Well, what's the harm?" Maybe you'll feel better if you just try hard enough. But we do know from many different areas of research and psychology that you pay a price when you try hard to suppress negative feelings, especially if they're very intense.
And studies have been done showing people who are engaged in a physical activity, their physical endurance is worse if they're also, somewhere in that experiment, made to feel upset or angry, and they're told to suppress it while they're doing the exercise. Physical endurance is worse.
This is an extreme example, but there's research on women who are trying to leave abusive relationships, physically violent relationships, abusive relationships, and that if they work hard to suppress their feelings of concern or anger or fear, and they work to be more optimistic or forgiving of their partners, they're actually, over time, at greater risk of further abuse, and they're also at greater risk of depression and even suicide attempt down the line. So here's an example where trying to suppress your fear or your anger can actually have a real cost, right?
We know from working with folks who are diagnosed with depressive disorders or anxiety or, especially, post-traumatic stress disorder, the last thing you want to do for someone who's experiencing say, PTSD, is encourage them to suppress their feelings. The primary treatments for some of those disorders are exposure to the difficult, painful feelings, working through them a little differently than we might on our own. But paradoxically, the more we're helping someone to acknowledge and work with their difficult feelings, the more likely they are to eventually find relief and feel positive or at least feel better in a more genuine way.
So insisting that someone just kind of suppress their negative feelings in the service of being positive, it's not just annoying. You can actually have a real impact on the person if they take it up that way.
Host Amber Smith: What if the person is depressed, they're clinically depressed, and they've got friends trying to help by telling them to look on the bright side?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: I would say there, again, it's really well intentioned, but it's not particularly likely to be helpful, right? Someone who's severely clinically depressed is hopefully in some treatment where they are talking about the parts of their lives that they could focus on, the positive parts of their lives that they could focus on building and developing, but simply encouraging someone to look on the bright side, I think especially for someone who's depressed, it has that serious impact of making them feel more alienated and isolated in the relationship, which is not helpful.
Host Amber Smith: So we talked about sort of this culture here, or the pressure, to be positive all the time. I wonder if that's an American thing? Do other cultures have this same sort of fascination with keeping positive?
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: I'm not an expert in this area, but I think until very recently, the answer would be it's really a Western culture and particularly something in the U.S., right?
It seems to be a particular issue here. In this, I'm going to speak very, very broadly, but in more Eastern cultures, the idea that you are independently responsible for your feelings and your outcomes, there's much more of a collectivistic sense of identity. And outcomes depend on a network, your community. No one person's happiness matters quite as much, right, as the good of the community. Again, I'm speaking very broadly here, and even things like self-esteem are described and defined differently. In the U.S., we might think of "I feel really good about myself and my accomplishments and my abilities." And there's some evidence that in Eastern cultures, self-esteem is built much more around "Am I meeting the obligations of my family, of my larger community? How well am I functioning as a community member?" And so there's a more diffuse sense of responsibility for any one thing.
Again, this is not my area, so I don't want to say anything definitive about that, but I do think that there's something kind of baked into that Western culture "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and if you're not, you are the problem" attitude, right? There are ways that that's great, of course, and there are ways I think that it really trips us up.
Host Amber Smith: Well, this has been very interesting, and I thank you. I appreciate you making time for this interview, Dr. Vanderhoff.
Holly Vanderhoff, PhD: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Host Amber Smith: My guest has been clinical psychologist Holly Vanderhoff, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Upstate. " The Informed Patient" is a podcast covering health, science and medicine, brought to you by Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and produced by Jim Howe, with sound engineering by Bill Broeckel and graphic design by Dan Cameron.
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